The room where Obama watched the Bin Laden raid was stripped out of the White House and will be rebuilt at his Chicago library
Pete Souza/The White House via AP
- The small conference room where Obama watched the Bin Laden room has been preserved.
- The room once part of the White House was sent in its entirety to Obama's library in Chicago.
- Its removal came amid a massive $50 million renovation of the White House Situation Room complex.
The small, secured conference room where President Barack Obama watched history unfold as US forces hunted down Osama Bin Laden will be reassembled in Chicago at his presidential center after it was stripped out of the White House earlier this summer, according to multiple reports.
According to PBS, the room was preserved in its entirety and was sent to Chicago. The decision will easily guarantee that the room will join the list of major and weird inclusions at the sites dedicated to immortalizing modern presidents. For example, Reagan's presidential library includes the Air Force One plane that served him and his successors all the way through President George W. Bush.
Obama White House photographer Pete Souza's photo of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton watching the May 1, 2011 raid is one of the most famous photos of Obama's presidency. Souza's shot was also a rare public look into the Situation Room complex.
The preservation of the room came amid reports about the future of the Situation Room. First started after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Situation Room is actually a series of secured conference rooms where presidents and their top military advisors and aides can discuss classified national security information. Over the summer, the entire complex was shut down as workers completed a massive $50 million renovation of the entire complex. Reporters from multiple outlets were allowed a rare tour of the classified space.
Obama's presidential library previously made waves by moving to exclude the actual "library" part of the presidential center. Unlike the 13 other presidential libraries operated by the National Archives and Records Administration, the Obama Library aims to be a fully digital facility, meaning there will not be a reading room to examine records on the complex's grounds. It's unclear what the plans are for former President Donald Trump's library given that he is still seeking a second term in office.
Traditionally, taxpayers are only responsible for the library portion of what have become massive presidential centers. A former president's foundation, in this case, the Obama Foundation, runs and operates the museum portion that is filled with artifacts loaned to it by the National Archives.
Obama himself has said that he does not want his center to be an "ego" trip focused solely on the past.
"When Michelle and I started talking about the Presidential Center, we were really firm that what we want to do was create something for the future," he said during a 2017 interview after plans for his center were unveiled.